On Vārāṇasī

Many years ago, now mKhan-po bDud-’joms-rnam-rgyal, one of my classmates in the monastic seminary (i.e. NNI) in rNam-grol-gling monastery, accompanied ’Gos Padma-rgyal-mtshan, from whom we learnt a great deal about Tibetan brda dag snyan gsum (i.e. grammar, lexicography/orthography, and poetry), to visit the famous Dil-mgo-mkhyen-brtse Rin-po-che. rGan-lags wanted to ask sKyabs-rje Rin-po-che some question. mKhan-po was full of anticipations. Perhaps he thought the meeting would be something like the encounter of Bodhisattva Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī. mKhan-po was, however, quite dismayed, because all what rGan-lags asked sKyabs-rje Rin-po-che was about the etymology of Vārāṇasī. sKyabs-rje Rin-po-che simply said he had no idea. rGan-lags was teaching in Sarnarth and obviously it has been a burning question for him. It is also very typical of rGan-lags. He once jokingly said that when he dies, he would do so by entering into the meditative absorption of grammar. In English it does not sound funny. But it does in Tibetan. Because dying by way of remaining in the meditative absorption is usually seen as very profound and mystical. Sadly rGan-lags passed away prematurely. It is a great loss for the Tibetan Buddhist intellectual world! We would not know the state of mind he was in while passing away.

            After this prelude, I actually wish to address a few points pertaining to Vārāṇasī, its etymology, and to the Tibetan interpretation and translation of the name in the context of the ITLR entry on Vārāṇasī. First, Vārāṇasī has been mentioned in Buddhist sources (e.g. both in the Pāli Mahāparinibbānasutta and the Sanskrit Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra) as one of the six great cities of India where the Buddha was active (Roth 2004: 123). According dGe-’dun-chos-’phel, name of the place where the Buddha set the Wheel of Dharma into motion for the first time, one of the “four great sacred places [connected with the life] of the Buddha” (sangs rgyas kyi gnas chen po bzhi), or, one of the “eight great sacred places [connected with the life of the Buddha]” (gnas chen brgyad). See the dGe chos gsung ’bum (B) (p. 392.13–16; Roth 2004: 123). Second, with regard to the etymology, the MW states: “the city Benares (more properly written Banaras; … so called after the names of two rivers, Varaṇā and Asi, or Asī; also written Vāṇārasī q.v., Varāṇasī or Vāraṇasī).” See also Apte: “Benares. This is at present situated at the confluence of the rivers Vāraṇā and Asi, but formerly at the confluence of the Ganges and Gomati (gaṅgāyā uttare kule vaprānte rājasattama | gomatyā dakṣiṇe kule śakrasyevāmarāvatīm || Mb. 13. 30. 18 ). It was the capital of Kāśī, and seat of a Brahmanical University.”

            Third, in Tibetan, the name has often been left untranslated “Wā rā ṇa sī” (Mahāvyutpatti, no. 4104; Mi-pham, Nor bu’i me long (B): p. 388.2) or “Bā rā ṇa sī” (Roth 2004: 123). Occasionally, the name has been translated as “Khor mo ’jig” (Hahn 2012: 9) or “Khor mor ’jig” (Hahn 2012: 9). In this connection, Michael Hahn states: “A noteworthy case is khor mo(r) ’jig and wā rā ṇa sī for Vārāṇasī, which in the first case was analyzed as consisting of vāra “turn” and the derivation of the root naś “to perish” (Hahn 2012: 9). Michael Hahn’s explanation of the Tibetan translation of Vārāṇasī has not made clear that ’khor/khor mor was obviously understood adverbially, that is, in the sense of vāraṃ vāram or vāraṃ vāreṇa, many times, often, repeatedly (MW, s.v. vāra). Thus ’khor mor ’jig was understood by Tibetan translators as something like “that which disintegrates repeatedly/continually.” The Tibetan translation of the Vajratuṇḍasamayakalparāja (B, vol. 96, p. 96.3) (the Sanskrit original is currently being studied by Gergely Hidas) has g.yog ’dor (N [sNar thang] is reported to read ’khar instead of ’dor) as the rendering of Vārāṇasī. Péter Szántó (oral communication) surmises that g.yog here may be an interpretation of vāra in the sense of parivāra, and the rendering ’dor seems to be a rendering of √as (“to throw, cast”, see MW, s.v. 2). See comments in Wadell 1914: 41, n. 32, where g.yog ’dor is understood literally as “servant thrown off or forsaken or striding.” Since the Sanskrit text of the Vajratuṇḍasamayakalparāja has Vārāṇasī, the reconstruction (i.e. urana + dāsa) suggested in Wadell 1914: 41, n. 32 turns out to be wrong. In short, Vārāṇasī, when translated into Tibetan, was translated in two ways, namely, as ’Khor-mor-’jig and as g.Yog-’dor.